Say “No” To Boring Ballet With This DVD Series

BalletBarreNone is a new and innovative way to teach ballet that makes it fun and helps teachers “get the ballet job done.”

BalletBarreNone has been developed by Eileen Juric over the last 8 years. After selling her studio, Basically Ballet in New Jersey, Eileen moved to North Carolina and began to freelance in a wide variety of dance studio environments. She quickly realized that there was not enough time allotted for ballet classes.

“Because this new generation of students need to take numerous styles of dance and have heavy rehearsal schedules for competition,” Eileen observes, “ballet falls into the category of other types of genres and is often scheduled only once or twice a week. This becomes extremely challenging for those of us who have been trained the traditional way and under optimum circumstances, would be teaching these same students 4 or more ballet classes a week.”

Eileen says she became a “desperate ballet teacher” who could no longer teach to her knowledge. She had to teach to their need, finding a way to minimize the time and maximize the results. Thus, BalletBarreNone was born!

The Giveaway

Eileen is giving away “The Children’s Hour of Power” 3-DVD SERIES to THREE readers.

“The Children’s Hour of Power” (see our review here) is a 3-DVD series for teachers, demonstrating a course of ballet study for students ages 3 – 9, which is based on Dorothy Lister’s pre-ballet program developed and taught during her 25-year tenure at the Joffrey Ballet School.

It is a fun and innovative way to establish a strong foundation during the crucial juncture (marked by higher drop-out rates) when students are typically thrown to the barre in transition from preparatory to more advanced levels of training. They can quickly become bored, outside-in dancers. “The Children’s Hour of Power” program highlights the “best of ballet with none of the boring!”

Each level begins with “Explore Your Core on the Floor.” The student “feels” the correct placement and can then know “how” to initiate the movements before standing up. This offers an additional opportunity for specificity, where the weaker leg can be isolated and more repetitions can be done to avoid one-side dominance.

Students continue on to “ABC Vertical Vocabulary” and finish with “Corner-to-Corner Train Station.” When in center, with no barre to hide behind, students are either “flying or dying.” They become “captains of their ships” as they work with partners using modified arms and constantly shift weight from side to side.

Each level gradually layers and progresses, building upon the one before. This way, the students’ young and receptive bodies learn on a visceral level how to work from the inside out and to grasp the correct quality of movements, setting up a wonderful foundation for years to come.

Students are stimulated by this wonderful approach, which is fun and interactive and encourages the students to finish the punch lines and sing along as they execute the steps. They quickly “make the connection with the correction” as their bodies struggle to do the simple things correctly. Even the most proficient of ballet dancers will be challenged to re-evaluate the “how” of “what” they think they know.

They take charge of their training and become willing to do the work necessary to improve their technique. The result: more versatile, responsible dancers and happier teachers!

Filmed in an actual class setting, “The Children’s Hour of Power” series is complete with subtitles, Class Notes, a “Quiptionary” (dictionary of all the quirky quips and phrases) and “NOtable NO’s.”

“The Children’s Hour of Power” is being taught globally in places like, France, New Zealand, Malaysia, Italy, and most recently, Japan. Now you can bring it to your studio, too!

This giveaway is open to those in the United States and will close Thursday, December 6 at Midnight CST.

Contests must be restricted to those 18 and up. If you are under 18 and would like to win, please have an adult enter and comment for you.

Winners will be drawn and contacted one week from today. I hope you’ll be one of our lucky winners!

Nichelle Suzanne began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. Nichelle holds a BA in dance and is an instructor with more than 17 years experience. She covers dance performance in the Houston area as a freelance writer and balances daily life as a mom to two young children. In June 2012, Nichelle presented the whats, hows, and whys of blogging on a panel at the annual conference for Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance, to better equip artists and companies for engaging their audience and new readers through online communications and content.

Comments

1. I struggle the most with getting everything in, as my class is only an hour. I spend so much time at the barre, making corrections and answering questions, that center and across the floor time is just never enough.
2. I certainly hope so!

I always feel as if barre is the most important part of ballet class for ages 8-10… but that is the part they find the most boring (those kids need to move, grande allegro is their fav). I think that the addition of the floor/core exercises could really excite my students!

I struggle the most keeping my students engaged while at the barre. We spend a great deal of time there, and after awhile their focus starts to wane. The younger students want to do “the fun stuff” in the middle of the room (i.e. petit allegro, grande allegro). Too many dancers have been taught that ballet is something that you won’t like, but you have to do. I want my students to understand that ballet can be so much fun, and that it doesn’t have to feel like medicine!

My struggle is to be able to teach what I need on the center without taking away from the barre. I came up with a solution: I teach a similar barre for about 2 to 3 classes, the first class I spend more time on the barre (80% barre to 20%center), the second time I can repeat what I explained before and the kids will recognize what I am talking about, so the split is more 75% to 25%. The third time I can go over things a bit faster and the class ratio becomes 65% to 35%.
I do the opposite the following set of 2 to 3 classes: I keep a “lighter” barre, no many “new” things in and a longer center. Anyways the center is never going to be longer than the barre…
Even when this seems to work, I am open for new ideas, so I feel this set of DVDs would be a great way to get a fresher look into how to teach younger students.

I have set a time limit for myself this year that is working like a charm, though I do tend to cut it close to fit in a decent reverance. I set x# minutes for barre and even if I don’t squeeze it all in we move on to the centre and continue from there. Then set the time for x#minutes for centre and that leaves X#minutes for allegro etc…

I always welcome new ideas to improve the quality of my teaching. I look forward to seeing what BalletBarreNone has to offer! Love learning new tips and tricks , especially those that can help with the shorter attention span groups thanks for the chance at a fabulous give-a-way!

I love the barre! But I also understand the importance of center work and getting dancers moving across the floor… My challenge is how to incorporate everything I want to teach – anatomy, proper technique and alignment, historical relevance, and artistry in a short amount of time, only a few times a week. Planning out a series of themed lessons over a span or several weeks has been helpful with this time management. I’m looking forward to hearing more ideas!

I’m always wanting to spend more time really breaking down the technique and developing those fine motor skills… which can make some students restless. I’d love to see how Hour of Power mixes dynamics with technical development.

The thing I struggle the most with is fitting everything in in an hour class! It is simply not enough time and students get bored when you spend too much time at the barre. I would love to win this, so I can keep the kids interested but allow them to learn the technique that is needed! I want my students to see how important the fundamentals are, without being bored!

I struggle most with time management during my one hour class. I could stay teaching exercises at the barre forever (and sometimes I do) and not have enough time to do center work and across the floor. Anything that would help me balance barre and center work would be great!
Thanks!

I struggle the most with getting in all parts of the ballet class (barre, center, and across the floor, as well as strengthening), and giving corrections to everyone who needs them. It’s a lot about time management but also structure of your class. Sometimes it’s hard to decide what is more important in a day’s lesson, I think the DVD set would be perfect in terms of helping a ballet teacher with that.

I definitely struggle with fitting in an adagio at both barre and centre. I have to combine a lot of exercises as well (tendus from first and fifth, jetes from first and fifth, grand battements with petit battements, fondus and rond de jambes, frappes and ronds en l’air, etc).

Has a dance educator I am always looking to further my knowledge on how to better instruct my students and use the precious time I have with them in more efficient way. I purchased the 1st in the series the children’s power hour and have already used many of the ideas in the dvd. Thank you.

My biggest problem with allotting time in my ballet class is exactly stated above: THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME for a well rounded ballet curriculum! I work for a competition studio and no, our students will not become ballerinas BUT they will never get the extra turns or the leg two inches higher without their ballet training. 2 hours a week is not enough for ballet in advanced level dancers.

I would love to learn from the DVD method as it would probably show me what you really focus in on and how to hone their skills with limited time. I can’t stress the importance of ballet to my students enough so I’d want to give them the most potent class possible! I want to learn all the bells & whistles of Ballet Barre None!

Who is Nichelle?

Nichelle Suzanne began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. Nichelle holds a BA in dance and is an instructor with more than 17 years experience. She covers dance performance in the Houston area as a freelance writer and balances daily life as a mom to two young children. In June 2012, Nichelle presented the whats, hows, and whys of blogging on a panel at the annual conference for Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance, to better equip artists and companies for engaging their audience and new readers through online communications and content. Read More…